It is a great pleasure to meet with you this morning and say a word of
greeting on the occasion of the rededication of this church, coming as
it does almost simultaneously with the entry of your pastor into his
eightieth year.
From the standpoint from which I am obliged so continually to look
at matters, there is a peculiar function to be played by the great
Lutheran Church in the United States of America. This is a Church which
had its rise to power in, and, until it emigrated to this side of the
water, had always had its fullest development in the two great races of
Northern and Northern Middle Europe—the German and the Scandinavian.
The Lutheran Church came to the territory which is now the United
States very shortly after the first permanent settlements were made
within our limits; for when the earliest settlers came to dwell around
the mouth of the Delaware they brought the Lutheran worship with them,
and so with the earliest German settlers who came to Pennsylvania and
afterward to New York and the mountainous region in the western part of
Virginia and the States south of it. From that day to this the history
of the growth in population of this Nation has consisted largely, in
some respects mainly, of the arrival of successive waves of newcomers
to our shores; and the prime duty of those already in the land is
to see that their own progress and development are shared by these
newcomers. It is a serious and dangerous thing for any man to tear
loose from the soil, from the religion in which he and his forbears
have taken root, and to be transplanted into a new land. He should
receive all possible aid in the new land; and the aid can be tendered
him most effectively by those who can appeal to him on the ground of
spiritual kinship. Therefore the Lutheran Church can do most in helping
upward and onward so many of the newcomers to our shores; and it seems
to me that it should be, I am tempted to say, wellnigh the prime duty
of this Church to see that the immigrant, especially the immigrant of
Lutheran faith from the Old World, whether he comes from Scandinavia
or Germany, or whether he belonged to one of the Lutheran countries of
Finland, or Hungary, or Austria, may be not suffered to drift off with
no friendly hand extended to him out of all the church communion, away
from all the influences that tend toward safeguarding and uplifting
him, and that he find ready at hand in this country those eager to
bring him into fellowship with the existing bodies. The Lutheran
Church in this country is of very great power now numerically, and
through the intelligence and thrift of its members, but it will grow
steadily to even greater power. It is destined to be one of the two
or three greatest and most important national churches in the United
States; one of the two or three churches most distinctively American,
most distinctively among the forces that are to tell for making this
great country even greater in the future. Therefore a peculiar load
of responsibility rests upon the members of this Church. It is an
important thing for the people of this Nation to remember their rights,
but it is an even more important thing for them to remember their
duties. In the last analysis the work of statesmen and soldiers, the
work of the public men, shall go for nothing if it is not based upon
the spirit of Christianity working in the millions of homes throughout
this country, so that there may be that social, that spiritual, that
moral foundation without which no country can ever rise to permanent
greatness. For material well-being, material prosperity, success in
arts, in letters, great industrial triumphs, all of them and all of the
structures raised thereon will be as evanescent as a dream if they do
not rest on “the righteousness that exalteth a nation.”
Let me congratulate you and congratulate all of us that we live in a
land and at a time when we accept it as natural that there should be
an interdenominational service of thanksgiving, such a ceremony as is
to take place this afternoon, in which the pastors of other churches
join to congratulate themselves and you upon the rebuilding of this
church. One of the constant problems of life is to try to cultivate
breadth without shallowness, just as we want to try to cultivate depth
without narrowness. It seems to me that thanksgiving with the combined
earnestness, the liberty, of the great body of the pastors who, for
our good fortune, are in the various churches of this country can be
accepted as in a peculiar measure typifying the American spirit in
religious thought; that for our good fortune those men have been able
to combine fervor in doing the Lord’s work with charity toward their
brethren who do it with certain differences in the non-essentials.
The forces of evil are strong and mighty in this century and in this
country as they are in other countries, as they have been in all the
past centuries; and the people who sincerely wish to do the Lord’s work
will find ample opportunity for all their labor in fighting the common
enemy and in assuming toward their fellows of a different confession an
attitude of generous rivalry in the effort to see how the most good can
be done to our people as a whole.
I thank you for having given me the chance to speak to you this
morning, to say a word of greeting to you and to wish you Godspeed with
all my heart.
ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE NAVAL ACADEMY AT ANNAPOLIS,
MARYLAND, JAN. 30, 1905
_Captain Brownson, Members of the Graduating Class, Governor
Warfield, and to the other Midshipmen and their friends and kinsmen
here gathered together_:
I fail to see how any good American can be other than a better American
when he comes here to Annapolis and sees the Academy as it is and as
it soon will be, thanks to the wise munificence of Congress; and I
am not surprised that you who graduate from this institution should
make the kind of men that as a rule you do make afterward; should
show the qualities of courage, of lofty fidelity to duty, of devotion
to the flag, and of farsighted preparedness to meet possible future
emergencies; should show the traits which I think, Captain Brownson, I
can say without flattery, characterize the service to which you belong.
I am not surprised that you should show those traits, for I should be
heartily ashamed of you if you did not. More than any other people in
this country, with the sole exception of those in the sister service
who have had your advantages, you owe a peculiar fealty to the Nation
which has trained you, which has given you a career in after life, a
career in which, if you do your duty, you are sure to lead honorable
lives, and to deserve well of the Republic; and a career in which
there is always the chance that you may spring into one of those few
places to be occupied by the men of the Nation who win deathless fame
for themselves by the way in which they serve the Nation in the hour
of the Nation’s need. On the one hand we have the right to expect a
peculiar measure of self-sacrificing service from you. On the other
hand we have the right to expect from the representatives of the people
a peculiar care for your interests. It is well that every public man
should feel under a particular obligation to see to the welfare of the
Army and the Navy. Governor Warfield, if you will pardon the personal
allusion, I want to thank you for the way in which you have made
evident your feeling toward this institution, for the reception you
gave just the other night to these very men about to graduate. It is
well that they should understand that because of the position they hold
the Governor of the great State in which the institution is situated
recognizes their possibilities of usefulness to the country, the
obligations due them, and the obligations we have a right to feel that
they will recognize to the whole Nation in return.
There are a good many baseless alarms which some worthy people feel
from time to time in this country, and which other less worthy people
affect to feel, but of all foolish crimes, of all baseless figments
of a disturbed imagination, the cry of militarism in this country is
the most foolish and the most baseless. Not only there does not exist
now, but there never has existed in recent times, any nation so wholly
free as this is from any danger of excessive militarism, so wholly
free from any danger of an undue growth of the military spirit. The
danger is now, will be, and always has been, the exact reverse; the
danger is lest we do not take sufficient thought in preparing the men
and material which will make our attitude in claiming to be a great
nation respectable. I would be sorry to see us content to assume the
position of a nation unwilling and unable to play a great part in the
world, unable to hold its own in the shock of arms, should it be ever
necessary, which I most earnestly hope that in the lifetime of no man
here present it will be necessary. Should it ever be necessary, and I
hope it will not be, to appeal to arms, I should be sorry to see us
take the position of avowed weakness, take the position that we did not
intend to rank ourselves among the great powers of the earth. I should
be sorry to see that; but I would a great deal rather see that than see
us insist upon taking such a position and refuse to provide the means
which would make such a position other than a sham. If this country
believes in the Monroe Doctrine; if this country intends to hold the
Philippines; if it intends, besides building, to police the Isthmian
Canal; if it intends to do its duty on the side of civilization, on the
side of law and order, and that duty can be done only by the just man
armed; if this country intends to do that, then it must see to it that
it is able to make good, if the necessity arises to make good. It is
idle to talk of our faith in the Monroe Doctrine if we are not able
to make that faith evident. It is foolish to remain permanently in the
Philippines unless we provide a base of military action for our fleets
and army should it be necessary to defend the Philippines in time of
war. It is foolish to assert our position as entitled to the respect of
other great nations unless we are willing to build the ships, to build
the guns, and to train the men who are to man the ships and handle
the guns if the need arises. I should be ashamed to see this Nation
play the part of a weakling. But I would rather see it play that part
frankly than see it boast what it was and then so handle itself that
if any one questioned the boast we should have to retreat from the
position we assumed because we lacked the power to make our words good.
I earnestly hope that our foreign policy shall be continued absolutely
without regard to change of Administration, to change of party, along
the lines of treating every foreign nation with all possible respect,
of avoiding all provocation for war, for trouble of any kind, of taking
every step possible to minimize the chance of trouble occurring; and at
the same time of taking every step possible to see to it that if by any
chance trouble does occur we do not come out second best.
Just at this moment, to illustrate what I mean, we have negotiated
certain arbitration treaties with the great foreign Powers. I most
earnestly hope that those arbitration treaties will become part of the
supreme law of the land. Every friend of peace will join heartily in
seeing that those arbitration treaties do become part of the supreme
law of the land. By adopting them we will have taken a step, not a
very long step, but undoubtedly a step in the direction of minimizing
the chance for any trouble that might result in war; we will have in
measurable degree provided for a method of substituting international
disputes other than that of war as regards certain subjects, and as
regards the particular nations with whom those treaties are negotiated.
We can test the sincerity of those people devoted to peace largely
by seeing whether this people does in effective fashion desire to
have those treaties ratified, to have those treaties adopted. I have
proceeded upon the assumption that this Nation was sincere when it said
that it desired peace, that all proper steps to provide against the
likelihood of war ought to be taken; and these arbitration treaties
represent precisely those steps. But the adoption of those treaties by
themselves would not bring peace. We are a good many years short of
the millennium yet; and for the present and the immediate future we
can rest assured that the word of the man who is suspected of desiring
peace because he is afraid of war will count for but little. What we
desire is to have it evident that this Nation seeks peace, not because
it is afraid, but because it believes in the eternal and immutable
laws of justice and of right living. Therefore, hand in hand with the
negotiation of treaties of that character, hand in hand with the effort
to put our foreign relations with every nation on a better footing,
must go the steady upbuilding of the Army and the Navy; above all the
Navy, so that our national honor may be sure of an adequate safeguard
should our national honor ever be actively menaced.
I want to say a word to you boys here in particular. I am about to have
the good fortune to present a sword to the best gunner and certain
medals also for gunnery. The sword is given by the class of ’71,
given annually, so as to put a premium upon markmanship; and, Captain
Brownson, I would like through you to thank the members of that class
for the patriotic service they have done in making such a gift.
The one thing that you graduates here, and all of the others in this
school, must remember, is that you ought to bend your entire energies
to fitting yourselves as you can only be fitted by the most careful
training in advance for the possible supreme day when upon your success
or your failure will depend not only whether your own lives will be
crowned with triumph or blasted with ruin, but whether the Nation will
or will not write a page of glory or a page of shame on her history.
There is not one of you who is not derelict in his duty to the whole
Nation if he fails to prepare himself with all the strength that in him
lies to do his duty should the occasion arise; and one of your great
duties is to see that shots hit. The result is going to largely depend
upon whether you or your adversary hits. I expect you to be brave. I
rather take that for granted. It is not that you are to be commended
much for bravery. You would be condemned forever if you lacked it. If
you lacked it in the highest form, courage physical and moral, the
courage that will assume responsibility, no less than the courage that
without a thought will face death, that we have a right to expect
from every one of you, and I say that you are less to be commended
for having it than to be condemned for failure to have it. But, in
addition, you have got to prepare yourselves in advance. Every naval
action that has taken place within the last twenty years in which our
own ships have been engaged or in which any foreign ships have been
engaged has shown, as a rule, that the defeated party has suffered not
from lack of courage, but because it could not make the best use of
its weapons, or had not been given the right weapons. Occasionally, of
course, if the victor happened to be matched against people who did not
show courage, the courage counted. But I want every one here to proceed
upon the assumption that any foe he may meet will have the courage. Of
course, you have got to show the highest degree of courage yourself or
you will be beaten anyhow, and you will deserve to be; but in addition
to that you must prepare yourselves by careful training so that you may
make the best possible use of the delicate and formidable mechanism of
a modern warship. The reason that you are trained here, the reason that
you are put through this academy, the reason that your training goes
on in the service is because without that training no man can hope to
do the work that is set before you to do. It is equally true that the
training can not be given you only from without unless you actively and
earnestly seek to get the best possible benefit from it yourselves;
that the best teachers, the best superiors can not supply wholly or
more than in very small part the lack of that which is within you. No
other body of men of your age in our country owes so much to the United
States, to the flag that symbolizes this Nation, as you do. No other
body of young men has on the average as great a chance as each of you
has to lead a life of honor to himself and of benefit to the country
at large. Deep will be your shame if you fail to rise level to your
opportunities and duties, and great will be the honor that I know you
will win, because I know that, judging you by those who have gone
before you in the service, you will rise level to your opportunities
and keep untarnished the proud fame of the American officer.